Praetorian Series [4] All Roads Lead to Rome (39 page)

I looked up and stared at Remus.  “I’ll make you pay for this.”

He stared down at me.  “You will never have the chance.”

And with that, he lifted his knee into the air, held it for the briefest of seconds, and slammed it back down to the cobblestone street, but not before going through my leg first.  The bones in my lower leg snapped and were pulverized into what I knew must have been a million pieces, but there was no pain.  At least not at first.  When I looked down to inspect what had happened I was more amazed than hurt at how when I tried to move my entire leg, only my thigh shifted while my calf and foot were dragged after it, completely useless and attached by skin and muscle alone.

And then the reality of my injury set in and the pain followed.  I rolled onto my side, seething through clenched teeth, but refused to take my eyes of Remus and give him the satisfaction of seeing the level of pain I felt truly reflected in my face.  He didn’t seem to care as he grabbed me once again by my collar and punched me to the ground, hard, and I was certain my jawbone was broken as well.

I lay there stunned, waiting for another blow to come, my mind too focused on the pain to come to care about anything else, but Remus seemed finished.  I looked up blurrily to see Agrippina standing with Remus now, her face sad, concerned, melancholic, angered, I couldn’t be sure.  She didn’t seem to be gloating, at least, which is what I expected.  Nor did Remus, who simply looked determined.  Held in his hand was the blue orb, but it wasn’t there long, as he dropped it at my feet.  I clawed at it vigorously, eager for its regenerative powers, but with the red orb present, it was only a time travel device, nothing more.

Only a time travel device…

And a useless one at that since I’d never had the forethought to activate it earlier.

“You will rot here, Jacob Hunter,” Remus said from above me.  “Perhaps these men will spare you and nurse you, but I do not believe they will be so kind.  Not after I abduct their beloved Romulus and revered Faustulus.  They won’t even care that it was their own brother and son responsible for the loss.  They will not care.  Farewell, Jacob.”

He spared one last look at me as a fresh bout of pain washed over me when I accidently moved a bit.  When I looked back, he was already barking orders and the circle of Praetorians was collapsing, drawing inward and tighter.  I shifted my eyes to Agrippina, my face surely conveying how much pain I was in, but she couldn’t help.  Even if she wanted to, as it I suspected she might, she was helpless with Remus calling the shots.  I turned away, seeking Faustulus, finding him only a few steps away that might as well have been on the other side of the world.  His eyes were full of sadness, but then he nodded, a single sharp thrust of his forehead, pushing me to lock it up and never give up.

And he was right.  I could still fight through this.  Get to my feet and snatch the orbs back from Remus’ grasp.

But then in the blink of any eye, they were all gone, leaving me alone with Boudicca’s body and hordes of primitive soldiers, too stunned themselves to move in on me yet.  They just stood in shock and confusion, maybe not even noticing that I was here, thinking me just another body among so many.

At least the pain seemed manageable now, although the sorrow I felt made the pain of a broken leg seem trivial at best.  I let out the breath I’d been holding for nearly a minute, completely defeated, trapped and alone in the past, the useless blue orb as my only companion.  I was beginning to feel better already, but even its power couldn’t dampen or repair everything.  The loss of Boudicca was too much and was still fresh.  Just another death I was responsible for, another check mark in my leger of responsibility, a leger that was filled with far too much red.

I tried to shift my leg again as I took in another breath, surprised at how little agony the movement caused even though it was just a dangling piece of meat now.  Spying the orb just a few feet away, I leaned over and took hold of it, bringing it into my lap.  I turned the orb over in my hand a few times, and saw the familiar clouds over clouds swirling frantically in a clockwise pattern.  The sight of it active and ready for use brought a smile to my face.  Just like old times, it seemed, only this time there was no Marcus Varus for me to find, opening my life up to one of the grandest and most painful adventures imagina…

A bright flash of light shone forth from the orb, colored the bluest of blues.  A muffled pop exploded in my ears, like the worst case of cabin pressure adjustment in an airplane.  I was jolted backward by the burst, and my eyes took a moment to adjust, although my ears worked just fine as they heard the last thing I ever expected to hear again.

“Yowza!”  An all too familiar voice exclaimed from in front of me. “I forgot how much that hurts!”

After a second, I saw a face in front of me, but it didn’t match the voice I’d heard.  It was familiar, looking much like an obscured, female reflection of myself, almost like my…

I cocked my head to the side, confused.  “Artie?”

My sister grinned and threw her arms around me, squeezing me tightly.  “My God, Jacob, I can’t believe we finally found you!”

“Found me?”  I said in disbelief.  “How are you even here?”

And that’s when the voice revealed itself from behind Artie.

“That’s the power of time travel, baby,” Santino said enthusiastically, although while the voice was now unmistakable, my friend, oddly, looked nothing like I remembered.  “Now, do you mind if we get the hell out of here?  The local wildlife doesn’t seem too friendly.”

I looked away from him and saw that he was right.  The twins’ soldiers certainly didn’t.  They’d composed themselves after the disappearance of their former leaders and all the Praetorians fighting against them, and started moving in on us.  Artie immediately pulled away and snatched her orb out of Santino’s hands, but before anything happened, I placed my hand on top of hers.

“How, Artie?”  I asked.

She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, grinning from ear to ear as she pulled away.  “Ready for a story?”

And then we were gone.

Part Three

IX

Rescue

June, 44 A.D.

Rome, Italy

Diana Hunter

Unlike most of them, I’d never seen Rome before, ancient or modern, and I had never expected that I ever would.  But there it was, in all its glory.  The sky was colored in a beautiful mosaic of oranges and reds as the sun was beginning to set, the grass was a vibrant green, the air warm with just a hint of summer humidity, and birds swarmed the sky and scattered in and out of view.

But beyond that, Rome was anything but picturesque.

I wasn’t a soldier, but even I could see that Rome was locked up tight, no one in and no one out without going through a number of checkpoints manned by Praetorians in full military gear.  There was a ridiculous back log of people trying to enter the city, the line miles long and extending out of sight on many of Rome’s numerous roadways.  Thousands of people, horses, and carts were queued up for an extremely long day of waiting.

“This looks familiar.”

I looked to my right, taking comfort in John’s presence.  We were still a sizable group, Gaius and Marcus’ Praetorians totaling perhaps nine hundred men, and John and the others were worth at least that many alone, so I’d never been particularly worried since setting out, but it was still nice to always have him nearby.

“What does?”  I asked him

“This quarantine of Rome,” he said, continuing to observe the city through his binoculars.  “Jacob and I walked into the same thing six years ago when we rescued Nero.”

I remembered the story, but not the pertinent details.  “How’d you get in?”

He peeked at me.  “Well, it was easy when we had Agrippina with us to wink at the guards and shake her ass at them.”

I rolled my eyes and turned away, but had to smirk.  “Too bad that won’t help us this time.”

“You’re telling me,” he said, looking through his binoculars again.  “And I don’t think Helena’s going to be much help with that, nor would Brewster impress them enough.  Feel like having a go at… ouch!”

I hadn’t smacked him, but Georgia had – a solid backhanded whack to the back of the head that probably hadn’t really hurt that much.  I glanced at her and nodded my thanks, which she returned with a look of amusement before going back to her assigned task of watching our backs.

Everyone was here, including Gaius and Marcus, who, like the rest of us watching Rome, were laying on their stomachs with binoculars pressed against their eyes, right beside Helena, who was next to John.  Alex was to my left, his sniper rifle out, with Archer beside him, while James, Jeanne, TJ, and Georgia guarded us.  We were at least a mile away from the outskirts of the city, facing it from the northwest, hiding in a small clump of trees that was just one small clump of many dotting the area.  We were between two roads, with a small but empty farmstead just beside us.  We’d waited until just before sundown to hide our approach, the glare of the sun more likely to blind those peering in our direction than to silhouette us against it – or so I’d been told.

The short run to this location had been exhilarating, and extraordinarily terrifying.  I felt safe surrounded by my friends, who had ran beside me with emotionless faces and the focused attention of professionals, as I knew they were, but it was still unsettling.  Their weapons had been drawn, ready to cut down anyone who stood in our way, but even though I’d experienced two battles now, large scale affairs where thousands of lives had been affected irreparably, the simple run to our position had been nerve-wracking in an entirely different way.

The battles had been intense and fast paced, action-packed and terrifying, but also long and drawn out.  All this sneaking around, on the other hand, was something different completely.  Tense, with quick starts and abrupt halts, complete silence accompanied by the rumble of stampeding feet, quiet breaths, and near silent orders I could barely hear, this was the most stressful thing I’d ever experienced.  Even now, a half an hour later, my heart still beat with extraordinary quickness, pounding against my ribcage like it was trying to escape.

I couldn’t understand why someone would choose to live a life like this, make a conscious decision to partake in a job that meant feeling this way over and over and over.  Although, I had to admit, there was something appealing about it.  In a way, I’d never felt as alive as I did right now, the rush of combat or imminent danger invigorating.

I looked to my right again, but past John this time and saw Helena looking just as determined as she always did, while Gaius and Marcus lay beside her, calm and efficient as well.  The three of them were silent, as was Alex and Archer to my left, and it was a silence that was beginning to bother me.

“What are they waiting for?”  I whispered to John.  “Why aren’t they discussing a plan?”

“They’re thinking,” he whispered back.  “It’s what the grownups do, apparently.  You know, before they speak.”

“Very funny.  Well, why can’t we just walk straight in?  We have a thousand Praetorians with us, Praetorians who are supposed to be here anyway.  Who’s going to question us?”

“Okay, smarty pants, what’s your extraction plan then?”

“My what?”

“Your extraction plan.  Your, ‘oh shit, shit’s hitting the fan, I’d better get my shit and get the shit out of here plan?”

“I think you misused a ‘shit’ in there somewhere.”

He shrugged.  “Happens.”

“Wouldn’t the Praetorians be our… extraction plan?  Fight our way out?”

He rolled his eyes.  “You know… your brother is many things, not all of them great, but at least he was subtle.  And patient.  Just cool your britches for a minute, grasshopper.”

“What did you call me?”

He didn’t answer, but that’s when Helena and Gaius started to converse, so I didn’t press him and instead listened in.

“Why the lock down?”  Helena asked.

Gaius dropped his binoculars and looked at her.  “We will be unable to ascertain why from here.  There are numerous emergencies that could warrant a quarantine of the city, but I see no evidence for the obvious ones: fires, plague, flooding.”

“A power struggle, perhaps?”  Marcus suggested.  “When the empress returned, she may have discovered others who had pressed their claims.”

Gaius nodded.  “That is quite likely, but assumptions will find us no closer to the truth.  We must enter the city and discover facts, not ponder on presumptions.”

“Fine,” Helena said. “So how do we get in?  Should we go with Artie’s gut and simply walk through the front door?”

She glanced at me and smirked.  I would have pouted at her in annoyance if not for the smirk.  Anything that reminded me of her humanity was well worth any gentle chiding.

“Most certainly not,” Gaius said, his voice equally humored.  “No, we will take another route.”

Helena returned her attention to him, her voice skeptical.  “A route that takes us through something other than a gate?”

“Exactly,” Marcus said.  “All roads may lead to Rome, but all ways into the city are not always so obvious.”

“Hover cars or tunnels,” Santino said, closing his eyes and repeating himself as though wishing for it.  “Hover cars or tunnels.  Please let it be hover cars.”

Marcus leaned up and crawled back a bit so that he could look behind us.  I followed his gaze, realizing that he was looking at the small homestead.

I heard him sigh and then say, “Tunnels… unfortunately.”

***

I’d never enjoyed playing in the mud and getting dirty like Jacob always had when we were kids, but like him, I also didn’t mind small spaces.  Claustrophobia had never been an issue for either of us. Cubbyholes, secret passages, and dark, hidden places had always been welcome during my youth.  Hide and seek had always been my favorite game, and while Jacob had always been an amazing seeker
and
hider, even he had always had trouble finding me.

But I still hated being dirty, and ancient Roman tunnels that required us to crawl on our hands and knees were about as dirty as they came.  I had no idea Romans could even construct stable tunnels that could accommodate a human the size of Jeanne – who didn’t seem particularly fond of small spaces himself right now – and I was sure if Jacob were here he’d go on in great detail how they’d been used to great effect in a dozen epic battles…

But he wasn’t here.

I dropped my head and focused, thoughts of how close we were to Jacob giving me the energy and drive to continue.  I felt so horrible for him, and as we’d inched closer and closer to Rome over the past month, the more depressed I’d felt.  I still didn’t understand if it was even fair to call him my brother, but I also didn’t care.  I loved him so much, and I couldn’t stand the thought of his mind being slowly eaten to pieces by a power so far beyond our understanding that it might as well be magic.  While the rest of our friends were still at varying levels of sadness or anger concerning what he’d done, I think even Archer was in this all the way now, ready to help Jacob as soon as we found him – although his particular feelings could have come from simple guilt.

But I didn’t care about Archer, and didn’t want to waste another thought on him unless I had to, so I simply ducked my head beneath a wooden plank that had dislodged itself from the ceiling, and kept on moving.  We’d been in the tunnels for over thirty minutes now, but I had no idea where we’d emerge, nor had any way of knowing just how long this tunnel actually was.  Gaius had ordered his Praetorian force to travel northeast and hide in the mountains that dominated the center of the Italian peninsula until called on, and then he and Marcus had simply led us down a hidden hatch in the farmhouse, having explained that the homestead was a front for the Praetorian Guard, operated by a single guardsman on a yearly rotation who got to be a farmer for a year while maintaining the hidden entrance into the city. 

Since entering, the tunnel hadn’t changed much.

The only light we had to see by was from a number of glows sticks hanging from vests worn by John, Helena, TJ, and Georgia, who were spread throughout our long line of individuals.  The green glow was creepy, but I wasn’t particularly bothered by it, and at least it offered
some
light to see by.

I was beginning to wonder if this tunnel would ever end, when I had the distinct sense that we were now traveling up a gentle incline, which could only mean that we were nearing our destination.  My theory was confirmed two minutes later when I plowed directly into James’ butt after he’d abruptly stopped crawling.  It had been like hitting a brick wall and my head actually hurt from the impact, and I reached up to rub the slight pain away while James craned his neck around and smiled at me.

“Watch it, lass.  Wouldn’t want to make Santino jealous, now would we?”

He laughed at my grumbles of annoyance and turned back around, and I waited for something new to happen when I heard Gaius’ faint voice, seven individuals ahead of me.  “Allow Marcus and me some time before following.  The Praetorian who manages the shop attached to the villa above us is a friend, but he will not understand your presence, and I fear we cannot trust him.  We will deal with him first.”

There were a chorus of agreements ahead of me, followed by the appearance of light from above, but it was gone seconds later, and I assumed Gaius and Marcus had entered the villa, closing a trapdoor behind them.  We waited in silence for at least ten minutes, all of us posed for action, all except me, I suppose, as I wasn’t even sure what I
could
do if something bad happened.  But at least I didn’t have long to think about it, because the light reappeared and James started crawling forward again.  I followed until it was my turn to climb out of the tunnel and into the villa, a simple enough task as the tunnel came right up to the floor of the structure.

As soon as I was out, I realized I had no idea what to do.  Everyone else was fanning out, their weapons up, searching the building for enemies, but I couldn’t help with that and I didn’t want to get in the way either.  I looked around the large open room I’d been deposited into.  It was rectangular in shape with a square garden in the center with an equally sized and shaped opening in the ceiling above it.  It certainly was a pretty room, but besides the few columns supporting the roof, there weren’t many places to hide, so I tiptoed to the garden and wedged myself between a few dense shrubs.  John had lectured me numerous times about the difference between cover and concealment, and how a shrub, no matter how thick, wasn’t cover in the slightest, but I didn’t exactly have another option so I sat down and got comfortable.

I couldn’t see much from my concealed location, but I didn’t hear anything either, which I took as a good sign.  Minutes ticked by, each as stressful as the last, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary, yet still I stayed hidden.

“
Ahem
.”

The sound of someone clearing their throat came from behind me, and I spun around on instinct, unable to identify it.  But my worry had all been for naught when I saw John standing above me, his hand held out for me helpfully.  I took it and stood.